Tidal Towns by Ciber_Turtle
Tidal Towns is a city builder/puzzle in which your city is sinking. Due to rising sea levels, sections of your city are falling below the water. It is your job as mayor to ensure all of your residents have a home after the rise.
Please note that you can't get the gist of the game in 2 minutes and is not ideal if you are looking to rate it quickly for karma. This will probably take ~10 minutes to have a good enough idea to rate properly.
There is a list of bugs near the end of the description. Reading may be helpful to avoid confusion.
How to play & controls
The game has tutorial. You don't have to read this before playing, but if you get suck feel free to reference this again.
| Inputs | Description | | --- | --- | | WASD | Move camera | | Q/E | Orbit (turn) camera | | Scroll | Zoom in and out | | Secondary click (right click) | Pickup residents or confirm build | | Primary click (left click) | Drop residents or cancel build | | Z/X | Rotate building (in build mode) |
Cheat codes :)
ctrl + alt + Wto skip a level (great for skipping levels you have already beaten since the game does not save your progress).ctrl + Gto give +10 of each resource.
About us
We are two high-school juniors who have been making games together since the 7th grade. This is our 3rd (finished) Ludum Dare game and we are proud of how it turned out. We hope you have as much fun playing as we did making.
Credits
- Music from abstractionmusic.com
- Sound effects from Kenney, Material Design, and many other sources
- Water inspired from Wind Waker.
Notes, Bugs, and FAQ?
- Shadows don't work on web build.
- On the first non tutorial level (second level), the highest point is on the the left, the right side is lower.
- The tutorial says to use
ctrl + clickto select / drop residents and click selects only one. There was a last minute change so that clicking selects all by default. - The arcology says it costs 20 of each recourse. This is an error, it only costs 15 of each resource.
- The Luxury house model is double sized for some reason, but the footprint is the same as it should be (much smaller)
- On some machines, restarting occasionally does not give you starting gold. If this happens, restart until you get it.
- You can place buildings partially in walls and over cliffs.
| Link | https://ciber-turtle.itch.io/tidal-towns |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/tidal-towns |
Ratings
| Overall | 11th | 4.434⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 10th | 4.378⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 37th | 4.316⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 4th | 4.737⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 142th | 4.303⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 53th | 4.25⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 31🗳️ | 57🗨️ |
It's a little difficult at first to understand but once you understand it it's very satisfying
One small art criticism is that the pixel art water doesn't match the buildings. (The water looks amazing tho)
I restart game and Gold counter just puts random 3 or 0
I think in the beginning it needs some time to understand what's going on, not only in terms of mechanics, but understanding what solution is right, but from 2nd try you have an idea and everything should go smoother. Another small point is that you try to jump straight to the action and forget to read you tutorial tips in the bottom, could make it a bit more clear
Great job, one of my favorites!
I like that there is no timer so I can take my time and think ahead, also the game fits the theme very well
Very nice entry!
I think maybe one critique I have, other than the issue other people mentioned here about having a hard time telling what is at the same height as other things, is the wording of the day counter is a bit confusing, at least for me. Having the text of the in-danger houses and buildings be red was a super duper great touch, but (and this is also because I was playing this game while multitasking other chores) I would forget if "two more days" meant "today and tomorrow" or if it meant "tomorrow and the day after that". Maybe having a little calendar in the corner as well? Even if it only shows you a week at a time or something.
I'm also unsure if this is an oversight, or if it was intentional, but I realized about halfway through the game that buildings are able to hang off of ledges? And pretty drastically, too. I think me trying to put the trees really close together (and being unable to) to save space made me feel like buildings would also need a lot of space on the sides of them, so when I realized they didn't I was (pleasantly) surprised.
I think my favorite thing about the game, though, is how non-intrusive the tutorial is. It's right there, if you need it, not distracting you or forcing you to go through it, but still able to be scrolled through if you want to. Very, very good tutorial design!
https://youtu.be/OMFzVKOU-1I?si=uGkPP6fW1onMlk1X&t=6057
Quite challenging. Couldn't get past the third level :)
But other than those issues I found, this is a frickin' sick entry! I had a lot of fun with this, the vibe is perfect and the use of limited space is front and center. Good job :)